Author: Photographers Work

American youth are forced to go to school every day. That should be a great thing, right? Wrong. If your child is going to a public school, they are not getting an education that will actually help them in their future. The first twelve years of school solely serve the purpose of limiting individual creativity and molding the perfect little obedient servant for the State. An argument can be made that the first couple years do serve a purpose, and I will agree with that, as all Americans need to learn the basics of English, math, history, and science. The problem is that after that, they are force-fed information that might not serve any field of interest for them and it ends up being forgotten at the end of the year.

They are not being taught. That is the main problem. The youth go through the many rigors of public schooling, including many stress-inducing standardized testing and homework that limits the social capability of said child. These young impressionable children are having their heads filled with useless information that is drilled over and over until the test, and then it just goes poof. It is never revisited again and the child never finds a use for it in the future. A lot of the math that stresses children out beyond the basic operations is completely useless in life unless that child is going into a math-heavy field. The thing is, school should be more oriented towards a child’s specific interests. Public schooling does not provide that at all. It’s one thing for the first eight years of elementary school be used to make children well-rounded and capable in a broad array of subjects, but high school should seriously focus on what the child is actually interested in and allow them to build on that and be prepared to get real in-depth in that field in college. Instead, high school students are subject to the same head-filling and necessity to regurgitate useless information for stress-inducing standardized tests. What is the point? Is there any surprise that many high school students drop out? They are just not interested in this same assembly line perfect employee production that public education is doing.

Individuality and originality are discouraged. It’s not as radical of a claim as it seems. Think about it. During the whole process of “learning”, children are given specific instructions to complete tasks and really can’t explore it in their own way and have the support of the instructor and other students. Sure, they can go home and use the Internet if they are truly interested, but they will never use that extra information in class. You can learn so much more on the subject, but if it has no place in the essay, it will most likely not be remembered when you have to remember everything else in school. The only classes that provide that individuality and creativity are art classes, but even with those there are specific projects and instructions. Children aren’t given a paintbrush and canvas and told to paint whatever they want. They are subject to instructions and have to worry about the burden of getting a good grade, which leads them to follow the directions as closely as possible, thus eliminating the potential creativity.

The system is outdated. Keep in mind that the current education system was designed for the 1900s. The problem: It’s not the 1900s anymore. Pretty much everything about life has changed since then and yet classes are still structured and taught as if it were the 1900s and children are still molded to be employees instead of employers. It’s a system that definitely needs to be changed to fit the times. Why are children forced to memorize complicated formulas or specific dates of historical events? The Internet is everywhere and the specifics of things can easily be looked up. Focus more on what actually happened at the historical event, or how to solve said formula, instead of forcing children to memorize them and then often forget what actually happened or how to solve the formula. Public education needs to adapt to the many advances that we now have technologically, and I mean adapting way more than just having computers in classrooms and online work submission services.

Public high schools rarely properly prepare students for college. The transition from high school to college is difficult, and it really shouldn’t be. College freshman should be ready to go and know exactly what they want, or at least a good idea. In an ideal structure, the first 8 years of school give students that necessary broad range of knowledge, and then high school really focuses on one or a few fields of interests and helps the child decide what they want. Therefore, the transition to college and the necessity to be set on a major is a much easier process and the child isn’t completely overwhelmed by the college system. By the way, that “broad range of knowledge” that the first 8 years would provide in that ideal system would have classes that are structured in a way where children actually learn stuff and retain that knowledge and are able to put it to use, while also fostering creativity and individuality. High school should serve as preparation for college instead of just an extension of elementary school.

It’s free education, why complain? You get what you (don’t) pay for! Well, see, there’d be no reason to complain if education wasn’t mandatory. By that logic, you’re pretty much ensuring that the poor stay poor and become indoctrinated into the system while the rich get the fulfilling education which allows them to stay rich. The playing field should be even and I am happy to say that it has been getting more even with many new scholarships and college opportunities for less fortunate people. However, that progress needs to be seen in elementary and high school, too.

Do you know anybody who hates photography? I certainly don’t. I really can’t fathom how someone could hate such a beautiful innovation. Just like at all of the products of photography. We went from painted portraits of presidents and other elected leaders to an actual point in time of that leader being recorded and forever etched into history. Taking a photo is much easier than painting a portrait and the resemblance is exact, due to it being the real thing and not a painting.

What else is great about photography? You mean, besides everything. Photos are beautiful. Have you seen the millions of pictures of sunsets on the Internet? They are really gorgeous. On top of that, photos help children learn. There is not one young child out there that doesn’t prefer picture books to other books. They like the visualizations that photos provide. It helps them really get a grasp of what is going on because they are actually seeing it instead of reading words that may or may not describe it in detail. Photos are everywhere in life now, especially with the rise of the “selfie”. Browse Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and you’re guaranteed to see many of these pictures. A selfie is just a casual picture that someone takes of themselves. Long gone are the days of going to professional photo studios for a simple photo of you, although those studios still use the best cameras and produce the best results, but for just casual photos, a selfie taken by a phone camera will suffice.

Can you imagine a world without photography? I really can’t. It’s become such a staple in our life that just taking it away would make it feel like something is missing. How would you be able to forever record that beautiful sunset or your wedding day? How about that silly moment where your child has food all over his or her face? I myself do not have very good photographic memory, therefore being able to just store these events clear in my mind wouldn’t work. Pictures are incredibly important in our daily lives and simply cannot just be randomly erased. Do you really want to go back to the days of spending hours painting a beautiful picture? I’d much rather snap a quick picture and have it stored forever (or at least until I decide to delete it).

Since I’m praising photography so much, I must be an incredibly photogenic person, right? Heavens, no! I absolutely hate taking pictures of myself, but that doesn’t mean I hate photography as a whole. I love seeing and taking pictures of things found on this beautiful planet, just not pictures of me. It’s definitely something that can be abused, as it is a lot, but the pros outweigh the cons by a large margin when it comes to photography. Again, I pose the question, how is it possible for a person to strongly dislike photography?